The bit of a travel ticket got caught in the zipper of the handbag. While I tried to pull it out, the side with the date printed fell apart. A decade old!

Of course the bag was laid to rest a long time ago. Couldn’t even recollect when did “she’ travel with me last. But as I sat to clean it up, there came spilling more tickets, menus, passes, bills and the travel lists prepared for trips.

“Oh, how careless of me” , didn’t pass my thought. I was simply enthralled.

There I was stuck in time, in recollection and remembrances. The places and the faces; the sea and the dune; the museums and the monuments; and the multi-cuisine experiences that cast a spell of a lifetime.

Those hours had made way to a year and in a span had become years. Those items were the things of past with little or no significance, except for being the unintentionally saved collections.

Interestingly, there are many amongst us who save tickets, clippings, or menus – “the items intended to last only briefly but often placed in scrapbooks.” The dictionary terms such collectibles “ephemera”. The word that has its origin in Greek explains to “lasting a day”.

A friend of mine is fond of the “Ganesha symbols on the wedding cards”, and another collects the shiny wrapping papers. They are passionate about their collections little knowing the term ephemera.

However, these collectibles are not the typical artistic creations or valuable artworks. They are the ordinary things in life that becomes extraordinary. And they acquire value in the long run.

Though, I may not have acquired such collections, I had set aside a few leaflets as token. A beginner in ephemera.